Snap Inc. and the Esports Foundation have unveiled Snap’s largest Esports World Cup (EWC) activation to date, bringing augmented reality, creator content and interactive venue experiences to the tournament’s edition in Paris, running from 6 July through 23 August.
The activation builds on an existing partnership between the two organisations. Snap was a partner of EWC 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the relationship has expanded for the Paris 2026 edition. For the first time, Snap’s CamKit technology has been integrated into video boards across the arenas, letting attendees interact with Snapchat Lenses during live competition, including a custom Esports World Cup Lens made for the event.
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Fans will also be able to access a dedicated Esports World Cup AR experience on Snapchat, use Snap Map to navigate fan zones and activities across the venue, and take part in interactive AR Mirror activations. Snap and EWC are additionally bringing together a group of creators to produce daily content, match reactions and behind-the-scenes coverage throughout the tournament. As Paris hosts the tournament’s first international edition, organisers are positioning the Snap partnership as a way to extend that community identity beyond the venue itself.
Hussain Alhajjar, Head of MENA Partnerships at Snap Inc., said gaming is one of the most engaged communities on the platform, particularly in Saudi Arabia. “The Esports World Cup has quickly established itself as one of the defining moments on the global gaming calendar, and we’re excited to bring our biggest activation yet to Paris, creating new ways for fans to connect with the competition, creators and culture that make esports unique,” Alhajjar said.
AbdulKareem Niazi, Director of Corporate Marketing, Campaigns and PR at the Esports Foundation, framed the partnership around EWC’s community base. “The Esports World Cup is shaped by its communities. Every one of those communities has its own identity, expressed through language, humor, traditions and its own way of celebrating the games it loves,” Niazi said. “Our partnership with Snap celebrates that creativity and gives communities new ways to share it with the world.”
The deal is the latest example of a short-form social platform moving deeper into esports coverage, following a similar activation by TikTok, which partnered with ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) to bring vertical livestream broadcasts to fans. Where the EFG-TikTok deal centres on distributing tournament footage in a mobile-first broadcast format, Snap’s EWC activation leans further into AR and in-venue interactivity—different approaches to the same underlying perception that esports audiences also meet on short-form, camera-first platforms besides traditional streams.
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